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Olds Toronado - READ ONLY

30 messages,  Last post on May 20, 2002 at 7:44 PM

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What is this discussion about? Oldsmobile Toronado, Coupe

Messages Page 3 of 3

#21 of 30 by Mr_Shiftright HOST

Oct 04, 2001 (9:04 am)

Yep, tires and gas will keep you in a lower income bracket if this is going to be your everyday driver.

#22 of 30 Consumer Reports tested one... by andre1969

Oct 04, 2001 (9:52 am)

...when it first came out. Predictably, they hated it! I think they got it to do 0-60 in about 8 seconds, so that probably means that Motortrend or C&D would've gotten more like a 6-7 second time! They also showed a front shot of it in a parking lot with both doors open all the way, and whined about how much space it took up.
 
Just out of curiousity, how hard would those early Toro's be on tires nowadays? Have they improved tires enough so that maybe it could skip a few meals?

#23 of 30 by Mr_Shiftright HOST

Oct 04, 2001 (11:05 am)

Well, maybe but it's still a physics thing.....you have a lot of power and a lot of weight on two front tires. These cars, while formidable and interesting, are not the most cleverly designed vehicles in the world when it comes to being efficient. Kind of an awesome FWD Camaro.
 
I have owned a number of fairly powerful FWD cars ( 3 Saab Turbos, Alfa 164LS) and they all ate tires. I'd go through a Michelin in about 8,000 miles, with my aggressive driving style, and I'd expect on a Toronado it would be much worse than that.
 
But your results may vary. If you drive sanely (boring) and rotate and inflate your tires faithfully, you might have a lot better luck than I did.

#24 of 30 by speedshift

Oct 04, 2001 (11:47 am)

I knew a guy who drove a Toro when they first came out and ended up buying a Riviera GS instead. He said he flogged the Toro in the hills and when he came back the front tires were so hot he couldn't touch them. I can't vouch for the validity of the "touch test"--tires get hot regardless--but with all that weight up front (what, 70% of maybe 4500 lbs.?) it makes sense that they'd eat front tires.

#25 of 30 Weight bias... by andre1969

Oct 04, 2001 (11:54 am)

I took a wild guess and figured maybe 4600 lb and 65% up front, which comes out to 2990 lb on the front tires. I think that's about what my '68 Dart weighs...for the whole car!
 
I wonder what all that weight would do to the front brakes when you had to stop, as well. I know the weight shifts to the front anyway, so normally front brakes wear out earlier anyway. But then add all that additional weight, plus having to slow down a torquey 430 (or was it a 425? memory getting rusty) or 455 V-8, I'd guess the car must've supplemented those tires with a steady diet of brakes, as well!

#26 of 30 67 Toro by ghulet

Oct 04, 2001 (6:17 pm)

I think they had a 425, as most big Olds did til 68. My old boss at the pizza place had one new, he called it 'the miler' cuz he says it took a mile to stop.
A friend of mine had a 77 and just complained about the tire wear, otherwise he loved it. Great in snow.

#27 of 30 1986-92 Toronado by jrosasmc

Dec 19, 2001 (9:25 am)

The Cadillac Eldorado that was made from 1986-91 was just a glorified Olds Toronado with a V-8, right? When we were looking at new cars to buy in 1987, the Toronado looked almost exactly like the Cutlass Ciera we ended up buying; and the Toro was much more expensive, to boot! Who'd buy a tarted-up two-door Ciera, anyway?

#28 of 30 Not too many people did buy... by andre1969

Dec 19, 2001 (9:36 am)

...the shrunken Toronados. I think their biggest problem is that the year before, GM came out with the N-body coupes: the Calais, Somerset Regal, and Grand Am. Originally, these were supposed to supplant the larger G-bodied personal luxury coupes like the Grand Prix, Monte Carlo, Cutlass Supreme, and Regal, but these cars were still selling too well, so they weren't replaced. GM's answer to everything in the late 70's was "downsize it", which worked well when it came to taking a gargantuan car and making it sensible-sized. But you can only downsize so far.
 
GM's attempts at downsizing in the mid 80's weren't nearly as successful as they were in the late 70's. They wisely kept the Monte, Grand Prix, etc around and launched the N-body coupes on their own, but then they downsized the Eldorado/Toro/Riv for 1986, and they ended up being not much bigger than the N-cars! I think the Riviera suffered the most, as the Somerset Regal had most of its styling cues, but the Toronado, Seville, and Eldorado all took a serious sales hit, and never recovered.
 
They did try to make the Toronado more massive around 1990 or '91, by tacking about 9 inches to the trunk, but it was too little, too late by that time.

#29 of 30 agreed by ghulet

Apr 13, 2002 (1:29 pm)

I saw both a Riviera and Toro from that era ('91-ish), when they tacked on the extra length to the trunk (and revised the roof lines, IIRC). The Riv actually looked pretty good (I think they tried very hard to bring back the look of the '85), but the rear end treatment on the Toronado (big plastic over one long strip taillight) looked a bit awkward.

#30 of 30 The last Toros ('90-'92) by crashtestdingo

May 20, 2002 (7:44 pm)

I convinced my father to get a '90 Trofeo (I still remember the date: June 23, 1990) because I loved its looks. We still have it, with just 52K on the odo.
 
While you may think of the enlarged trunk as a styling element, it does make for lots of cargo room.
 
I remember reading somewhere that these last Toros shared just one body panel with their immediate predecessors, the hood.

Messages Page 3 of 3

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